"The Hot Rockin' Four"

I was walking from South Pearl street, uptown to do whatever a young teenager does when he goes out after supper. I was just cruising. I always had to make a stop in the alley between Erickson floor covering and Motor Inn when it was up town. This alley spilled out into another alley by the old Chevy showroom on Washington. Under a board, on top of a shed,that was at the edge the building, was a good spot to stash my cigs. Maybe this is why a young teenager goes out for a walk at night. Now if it didn't rain and the matches were dry, I would get to lite up and walk down the alley towards the Tribune building.

Tonight I walked as if there was something special, I was expecting to happen. I walked across Broadway and down across the Courthouse lawn . In back of the courthouse on Newton there was a stone wall you could sit on. I plunked myself down and waited for Jim to come along. Jim lived on the south side so this is where we would meet. I laid back on the grass and started daydreamin about what boys dream about at 13...... GIRLS!.....I wandered if I was ever going to stop being shy around girls.

Jim wasn't shy. He just would walk right up and start talking about something real cool. I just couldn't think that quick or something. Yah well just wait until tomorrow, I'm going to tell Nancy that I think she's cute and I don't care if I turn all red or just die . You just wait.

"Hey Zit Brain" It was Jim. "Hey Puke Face" I would return. That's what we would do, was call each other these real cool names. "You ready to go Dancin" he asked, and I went "Oh hell", I had forgot we were going down to the (Episcopal church) to a dance. I didn't put on my cool shoes or my new shirt. I looked like skuzz. Then I laughed and said "sure I am if there are girls there I'm goin". We started up the hill past the Jail, turned and went back towards Broadway. We had to walk Broadway just so any one worth seein' could see us. Maybe some older kids would let us drag Broadway with them. No such luck. We had to walk.

Down past the Rivoli, Woolworths, Unique Cleaners and then down past the "Masonic Temple". I thought for many years that some Sultan of Arabia lived there. We turned west and headed past the Bowling alley just in case the Girls League was bowling, but that was on Thursdays I think, and this was a Friday. Oh we probably knew that but this would be good conversation for another couple of blocks. We could always discuss GIRLS. You know, who did and who didn't ( what they did, we didn't know) but we discussed it. We tried to act like such "Cool Cats".

We had to go by this big Elm tree by this really big house. ( oh yeh right!! thats another story). We were now at the top of the hill at Washington and Fountain. The church was just below us. This was on the road that ended just past the church, cuz you could drive right in the lake if you didn't stop.

I could barely hear it to start with. The trees must have been absorbing the sound until just as we came down the hill. I stopped. I had to. Now the sound was growing and I felt something grab me on the inside that would not let go for many years. It was sort of like being woke up. I felt different and light headed. Now don't get me wrong I had seen "Blackboard Jungle", even if I wasn't supposed to. I had heard "Rock around the clock". and Chuck Berry sing "Johny be good". But this was happening here, in Albert Lea, Minnesota. It was not from some station in Pennsylvania, or from some movie screen. It was right inside that door.

I could hear the four distinct sounds that boomed through the walls. as the TomToms played out some sort of jungle beat as my Dad would have said. and the snapping sounds of a stand up Bass. An Electric Guitar was playing out a progression of chords that truly defined what rock and roll was going to be. A rockin voice jumped out of an Amplifier and was telling us about his love life gone bad. Now heres something I can get into.

When your brother is the Bass player in a Rock-N-Roll band, you probably should have heard this before but I had never heard them all play together. I mostly heard my brother as he would practice before my dad came home.

I was going to be a part of this Awakening. This Dawn of Rock-N-Roll. I could feel it. So could about 40 other kids that packed this small parish hall in the basement of the church. You could see it in the quick changing dance movement that was made, as their partners gave them a yank and spun them around.

Hey, I did not forget about Jim. But he was busy. I lost track of him after a while, as he must have found some girl and was walking with her down by the Band Shell, trying to achieve something, I don't believe he found for another year or two.

I am not sure if I even was aware of time passing. I was mesmorized with this music. I found myself dancing with a girl that was in the 10th grade. I won't even guess if I asked her, or we just started dancing. It could not have happened in the fourties or even in the sixties. Rock-N-Roll was being born........ NOW.

You may already know who I have been talking about. Albert Lea's answer to Carl Perkins. And to that new kid that sang "Black " music and he was white. This was "The Hot Rockin Four". This was "My Brother and now he is "Cool". Not just my big Dorky brother. This spring the band would change its name hoping just to get heard, so they could become Rock-N-Roll Stars. They became "Steve Carl & the Jags". Steve Leuthold on Vocals and Rythm Guitar, Mike Pederson on Lead Guitar, Al Anderson on Drums and of course Dick Stensrud on The stand up Bass.

Remember earlier, I said that I was walking like something special was going to happen? Was it a premonition or was every day in the late fifties the same? Filled with some new happening?

Sit down with those grandkids and tell them you were there in the beginning. Tell them to feel what it was like thru your eyes. Rock-Roll can only stick around, if we keep it going.

I think every person that was a teenager between 1955 and 1958, should remember what it was like to be part of "The Birth Of Rock-N-Roll". So Now sit back scroll down and start the player on your screen. Let me once more introduce "The hot Rockin Four". ( I liked that name better anyway).